Tom Brady Level Health

Why can pro athletes recover from illness and injury quicker than the rest of us? Why do Hollywood stars like Tom Cruise seem to be ageless? How has Tom Brady maintained his arm and body throughout written history? What separates them from the rest of us? Other than superior genetics, years of hard work, and a little luck?

For one, they are honest with themselves regarding the current state of their mind and body. If we're unwilling to acknowledge potential problems or outright ignore them, they don't go away; they compound.

Two, they rely on teams of specialists to keep a near-constant vigil on their health. They monitor and track a myriad of vital signs and other wellness measures. They can use these regular data points to catch problems early and increase their performance by knowing exactly how far they can push themselves before they've cut to the bone.

To be fair to the rest, we also have regular health screenings. And using tools like MyChart, you can see these trends of your wellness measures over time. But most of us (me included) only have this kind of health check once a year. In comparison, professional athletes can be as often as daily. Over 2022, I had my cholesterol, blood work, et cetera checked precisely once. This means most health and lifestyle decisions will be based on a single data point. At best, these decisions might be based on the roughly twelve data points my doctor has recorded since I began seeing him in 2010. Tom Brady could have upwards of 3,600 data points within that same time frame, meaning he has 300 times more information and insights than I do to improve my well-being.

Let's talk about this in detail for a second. Suppose the only way to improve something is to measure it first, and the key to staying healthy is using wellness data to intervene or change my lifestyle. In that case, I am roughly 300x behind the eight-ball compared to our Superbowl-winning straw man. And a key point here is that the value from these screenings isn't just in the absolute values at each check-up but how they have changed over time and where they are heading.

If my cholesterol is high at my annual physical, my physician will likely advise me on lifestyle changes that could help. But this is the kicker; I won’t know if those changes are effective until an entire year has passed. During that period of "data blindness," the new wellness plan could be working well, marginally, or not at all. If it's the latter, my health will have declined instead of improved as we planned.

If Tom Brady's cholesterol is high, his care team will be able to compare it to all their previous readings and better ascertain if the high value is due to the bacon cheeseburger Brady snuck the day before. And if it stays high, they can implement changes and determine their effectiveness within weeks.

Thus, in this scenario, I could have a significant health problem for 400+ days before an effective plan is started. Brady and his care team will have fixed the issue in that same timeframe, and he probably will have had at least one four-touchdown game against my Panthers. Over time, the advantages Brady gains from his regular wellness monitoring will compound. Even if, by some miracle, he and I had started at the same place, he'll finish leagues ahead of me.

So, are you still running your strategic sourcing on a schedule of annual bids and negotiations? Generating one data point a year on the state of the market for each category? Or… are you ready to go pro?